Principles, Practices, and Creative Tensions in Progressive Higher Education: One Institution’s Struggle to Sustain a Vision

408 Pages·2017·29.756 MB·English

by  Katherine Jelly, Alan Mandell (eds.)

Principles, Practices, and Creative Tensions in
Progressive Higher Education

Principles, Practices, and Creative Tensions in
Progressive Higher Education
One Institution’s Struggle to Sustain a Vision
Edited by
Katherine Jelly and Alan Mandell
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-94-6300-882-2 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-94-6300-883-9 (hardback)
ISBN: 978-94-6300-884-6 (e-book)
Published by: Sense Publishers,
P.O. Box 21858,
3001 AW Rotterdam,
The Netherlands
https://www.sensepublishers.com/
Cover image: If the Shoe Fits, Joan Mellon, 2013; oil on paper, 7 × 10.25 inches
Printed on acid-free paper
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No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction: Creative Tensions in Progressive Higher Education: Theories
and Practices in a Changing Context 1
Katherine Jelly and Alan Mandell
Section I: Underlying Principles, Ideas and Values: Perennial Questions
1. Empire State College and the Conflicted Legacy of Progressive Higher
Education 29
Wayne Carr Willis
2. Conflict, Change, and Continuity: ESC’s Goddard College and British
Open University Connections 43
Richard F. Bonnabeau
3. John Dewey, Constructed Knowing, and Faculty Practice at Empire
State College 65
Xenia Coulter
Section II: Student-Centered Pedagogy: The Mentoring Model and
What It Has Meant
4. Is the Authority in the Dialogue? A Memorandum 93
Lee Herman
5. Educational Planning at Empire State College: Fluidity vs. Structure,
Process vs. Product 111
Susan Oaks
6. Interdisciplinary Education at Empire State College: Many
Opportunities, Ongoing Challenges 133
Lorraine Lander
7. The Cipher and Empire: Teaching and Mentoring through Hip-Hop 149
Himanee Gupta-Carlson
Section III: Let 1,000 Flowers Bloom: Our Students and the Programs
and Procedures That Support Them
8. “I Don’t Write, I Work”: Writing and Reading with Trade Union Apprentices 167
Rebecca Fraser and Sophia Mavrogiannis
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
9. A Progressive Institution Takes on Academic Support, 21st Century Style 183
Seana Logsdon and Linda Guyette
10. On the Leading Edge: International Programs and Mentoring in
Transnational Settings 201
David Starr-Glass
11. Inherent Tensions within the Practices of Prior Learning Assessment at
SUNY Empire State College 215
Nan Travers
Section IV: Organizational Frameworks: Infrastructure, Culture,
and Change
12. Organizational Complexity in a Progressive Educational Environment 243
Lynne M. Wiley
13. Technology Meets the Local: One Mentor’s Reflections on Autonomy
and Connection in a Dispersed Institution 255
Chris Rounds
14. Family Feuds, Shotgun Weddings and a Dash of Couples Therapy:
The Center for Distance Learning/Metropolitan Center Blended
Learning Initiative 273
Sarah Hertz, Cathy Leaker, Rebecca Bonanno and Thalia MacMillan
15. Growth and Its Discontents: Organizational Challenges to a Radical
Vision 295
Cindy Conaway and Christopher Whann
16. At a Crossroad: The Shifting Landscape of Graduate Education 313
Barry Eisenberg
Section V: Empire State College in a Broader Context: The Impacts of
External Forces
17. Empire State College: Exceptionalism and Organizational Change in
the SUNY System 339
Edward Warzala
18. Current Technologies and Their Uses at Empire State College:
Benefits, Costs, and Possibilities 357
Betty Hurley
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
19. Implications of Emergent Content, Experimentation, and Resources
for Outcomes Assessment at Empire State College 375
Joyce E. Elliott
Afterword: Living the Questions to Sustain the Vision 393
Alan Mandell and Katherine Jelly
About the Contributors 399
Index 407
vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many people contributed to this project. We thank them all very, very much: to
Bob Carey, Morris Fiddler and Connie Krosney, for their helpful input at the early
stages of organizing this book; to Karen LaBarge, for her genuinely helpful and
meticulous attention to detail and for her thoughtful questions at every turn; to Terri
Hilton, for her support in helping us to keep track of early correspondence; and to
the authors of these chapters, for their ideas and insight, their interest in and careful
attention to the themes of this volume, and for their patience with the process of
bringing it all together. We would also like to thank our colleagues at SUNY Empire
State College for their tireless commitment to our students and for their efforts to
sustain, renew, and work imaginatively with the creative tensions that confront us
all every single day. We sincerely hope this book supports all of us – at ESC and
beyond – in doing that.
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